Cyber Security:
Virus, and Malware?
A virus and malware. Just what is the difference?
An anti-virus program needs to have their core capabilities changed or its name re-named.
It is used interchangeably by companies and cyber security firms alike in this modern day to announce their capabilities.
While malware is short for malicious software, it is a general term used to describe viruses.
In this example put aptly by the great people over at Emsisoft:
” As computer viruses are undoubtedly malicious, they fall into the category of malware, just as trojans, rootkits, or spyware do.
In the end, it can be likened to dachshunds and dogs: every virus is malware just as every dachshund is also a dog.
But just as every dog is not a dachshund, not every piece of malware is a virus, but rather belongs to a subcategory. In fact, there very few new viruses these days, as the majority of current malware is made up of other virtual parasites.”
After placing it into perspective like that, one has a clearer picture.
At this point, there are just as many variants of our favorite companion counterparts as there are malware.
While traditional anti-virus (AV) companies do provided some form of protection against malware, they are really weak at detecting emerging cyber threats that can modify their own codes.
They will simply get past the AV undetected and can stay hidden from detection once they are past your first line of defense.
As your company’s first layer of defense, you, as a business owner should start considering moving on wit the times.
Cheap solutions for AV found at your local brick-and-mortar shop doesn’t cut it anymore. As they also say: you get what you pay for.
And this affordable alternative to a next-generation anti-virus (NGAV) will absolutely not aid your company in times of turmoil.
Our managed IT solution includes our partners Webroot and Bitdefender as part of our subscription.
But what do they have in common?
They both offer NGAV as part of their cyber security suite.
Granted your business already has a next-generation firewall (NGFW) in place, these two products will work in tandem to deter emerging cyber threats.
Let’s go a little more detail into what a NGAV is.
It has the ability to detect emerging threats leveraging on machine learning using analysis.
This takes out all the guesswork your IT personnel has to do, or the hours they have to spend to analyse the information.
This information about the cyber threat is then pushed out to all endpoints in the Webroot network. One infected device, and everyone else, even outside of your company, gets inoculated.
Your next question must be:
Will it take up a lot of space then? And eat up a lot of the CPU resources of my workstations?
The answer is amazingly no.
Take Webroot for example. its agent takes up less than 1MB of space AND it doesn’t detect the threats based on signatures.
Everything is happening in the cloud.
What about the damage done to your files by the emerging threat?
Webroot can roll back whatever damage is done. No re-imaging needed.
Do we have to uninstall our existing anti-virus solution?
And again, no; Webroot plays well with others.
But in Bitdefender’s case, yes.
What about deployment and management?
All done centrally via a web-based console, and information will be included in our monthly reports to our clients.
Stick around for more information about email security.